Public Project
Other People's Dirty Laundry
"Changing sheets and doing laundry are the chores of my work and I think it's interesting that I am often dealing with other people's "dirty laundry" ~ repressed emotions, fantasies, fears, activities which seem unconscionable...It's sad that sex is so complicated for us humans."
Jenna, Manhattan 2007
In the spring of 2007 I met and began photographing Jenna, an upper-middle class woman in her late thirties who had made her living for the last ten years working in the sex industry. When I met her, Jenna was living in a co-op apartment in the West Village, a trendy and wealthy neighborhood in downtown Manhattan. She was working almost every day, seeing clients in the apartment where she lived.
Now in her mid-40s, Jenna continues to work, supplementing her local income by taking periodic work trips to various cities around the country where she stays in high-end hotel suites and sees local clients, most of whom she solicits by advertising on a website which features escorts and erotic massage practitioners.
Jenna is completely open with her friends and family about what she does for a living. She works independently and maintains her own interactive website and blog.
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